"The final hours of comet ISON" in the September 2014 issue.
"Have X-rays revealed dark matter particle?" in the August 2014 issue.
"Speedy stellar jets spotted by ALMA" in the October 2013 issue.
"Herschel solves water mystery on Jupiter" in the June 2013 issue.
"Wide twin stars formed from triplets" in the February 2013 issue.
"Stray stars are possible origin of cosmic infrared background" in the December 2012 issue.
"Fingerprints of ancient magnetism on Vesta" in the December 2012 isue.
"Lunar swirls create natural radiation shield" in the September 2012 issue.
"A bridge between galaxies" in the August 2012 issue.
"Saturn's jet-set ring" in the May 2012 issue.
"Venus slams on the brakes" in the April 2012 issue.
"Dwarf galaxy grows four tails" in the January 2012 issue.

Astronomy Now features:

"Hot Jupiters - the unexpected planets" in the January 2018 issue.

"Uranus: it's time to go back" in the October 2017 issue.

100 years of General Relativity special - "If you can't break it, carry on testing" in the November 2015 issue.

Focus: The Gaia mission - "Narrating the story of the Milky Way" in the October 2013 issue.

"Planets in exile" in the May 2013 issue.

"Gravitational lensing: nature's telescope" in the December 2012 issue.

"A Dawn view of Vesta" in the October 2012 issue.

"A NuSTAR in the sky" in the May 2012 issue.

Sky at Night articles

Book review - "The Spirit and the Sky: Lakota Visions of the Cosmos" in the September 2017 issue.

Feature - "Is there life on Europa?" in the November 2016 issue.

Feature - "Beneath the shining surface" in the July 2015 issue.

Book review - "Goldilocks and the Water Bears" by Louisa Preston in the August 2016 issue.

Book review - "Alien Skies" by Frederic Pont in the June 2015 issue.

All About Space features

Feature - "We've found new gravitational waves" in November 2017 issue (Issue 71)

Feature - "Dark Stars" in June 2017 issue (Issue 66)

Popular Astronomy articles

Feature "On top of the world: an observing trip to La Palma" in the January/February 2016 issue

"What meteorites can tell us about Ceres" in the September-October 2016 issue

"One-of-a-kind Martian meteorite" in the September-October 2016 issue

"Paving the way for alien atmosphere studies" in the September-October 2016 issue

"Failed planets could help form next generation" in the September-October 2016 issue

26/11/16Blue planet Earth was once an orange world like Titan
The ancient Earth would have looked alien to us as it was engulfed in a thick orange haze. By studying Earth’s past, scientists are deciphering what a similarly hazy exoplanet would look like in future space-based telescopes.

23/07/15Mini-Neptunes might host life under right conditions
M-dwarfs, which are cooler than our sun, have habitable zones closer to the stars. As such, any habitable planets orbiting these stars would transit frequently, making the chances of discovery better.

23/03/15BepiColombo: a duo of spacecraft to orbit Mercury
Mercury is the least explored terrestrial planet in our Solar System, and as the Sun sets on NASA's successful MESSENGER mission, a new era of discovery will dawn with the ESA/JAXA mission BepiColombo.

14/08/14Trio of giant black holes at centre of distant galaxy
At the centre of our Galaxy lives a monster. A giant black hole four million times the mass of our Sun is lurking, eagerly awaiting the next star or gas cloud to wander into its clutches. Also published in the Sept/Oct 2014 issue of Popular Astronomy.

01/11/13A crater as an abode for life
A new study shows how the heat generated from an asteroid impact could lead to a crater becoming a refuge for life, or even a potential birthplace for life's origin.

23/09/13Did autocells lead to life?
Terrence Deacon at the SETI Institute recently gave a talk that summarized how autogenesis could have bridged the gap between prebiotic and biotic systems. This process would need to start in conditions only present on the gas giants before being transferred to Earth, suggesting that the entire solar system was needed for life to form on our planet.

22/07/13Exploring the world of life underground
Future life-seeking missions on other worlds may be in for a tough time if all evidence of past or present life is below the surface. In a talk at given for the STScI Astrobiology Lecture Series, Jan Amend discussed how his team is taking the next step in studying microbes that have conquered the subsurface of the Earth, and how techniques will need to be perfected before they can be successfully used on another planet.

18/06/2013Mystery surrounds star's explosive death
An unusual outburst from a supposed supernova has astronomers arguing whether the star has actually exploded, or if it is still awaiting its violent death.

18/05/13Lifting the veil from a star's alien worlds
The composition of exoplanets can be studied via their spectra - those rainbows of information contained in starlight - but these chemical fingerprints can be difficult to wrestle out of the data. Spectra of exoplanets are slowly dribbling in, but for the first time astronomers have attained spectra of multiple planets in a system, and the results are not quite as expected.

25/02/13Detecting life on planets that orbit white dwarf stars
A white dwarf is a dead star that slowly cools down until it fades into oblivion. Yet it has been predicted that habitable planets can orbit a white dwarf. If we can somehow detect these planets, would we also be able to spot signs of life?

12/01/13Comets galore orbite alien starsA comet blazing in the night sky can be a spectacular sight, with its bright gaseous tail liberated from the icy nucleus by the heat of the Sun. A handful of stars are now known to also harbour comets, and new research suggests that these could be as common as exoplanets.

20/12/12Swansong biospheresBillions of years from now, life on Earth will be extinguished when the Sun becomes a Red Giant star. New research determines the last places life will exist before our planet is sterilized.

09/11/12Colors of ExoEarths could indicate habitabilityWhen direct detection of Earth-like planets becomes possible, scientists want to be able to easily characterize these planets and see which ones might be suitable for alien life. A new technique shows how the unique colors of particular environments known to harbor extremophile life on Earth can be detected remotely.

16/10/12Monster black holes come out of hidingA group of supermassive black holes that had been lurking behind a veil of dust have had their hiding places revealed by an infrared survey. All galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their centre, but not all of them like to announce their presence.

06/09/12Does Triton have a subsurface ocean?Neptune's largest moon Triton is most likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object. The capture of icy Triton and the subsequent taming of its orbit likely led to the formation of a subsurface ocean through tidal heating. New research suggests that this ocean could still exist today.

17/08/12Moons of Uranus perform dance of death
An intricate dynamical dance performed by the inner moons of Uranus could end in disaster as it appears that certain pairs of moons have the orbital equivalent to two left feet.

13/08/12Earth vaporised in the name of science. Don't panic!
What would the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet be like if it was close enough to its parent star to evaporate rock? Astronomers have attempted to answer this question by using computer models to vaporise the Earth.

14/07/12Impossible, record breaking orbit for red dwarfs
The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope has unveiled a puzzling set of binary stars that whiz around each other in time-scales that were thought to be impossible. These unexpected results could mean that its back to the drawing board for understanding red dwarf formation.

06/07/12Mysterious space arc puzzles astronomers
An image of a distant galaxy that has been smeared into an arc due to immense gravitational forces is puzzling astronomers because it simply shouldn't exist.

14/06/12Black holes stopped stars formingIt has long been thought that supermassive black holes in the centre of galaxies and their surrounding stellar bulges grow hand in hand. However, two rebellious galaxies have been found ignoring this rule.

07/06/12Spirit and Opportunity, the twin Martian rovers
The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, embarked on a journey to Mars intending to complete a three month primary mission to learn about the history of water on Mars. Over eight years since they landed, and Opportunity is still making tracks across the red planet.

02/06/12Asteroid weighs in prior to spacecraft visit
Scientists have used an innovative technique that combines radar and infrared measurements in order to weigh the asteroid 1999 RQ36, the target for an ambitious NASA mission to return a sample of its regolith.

24/05/12Black holes stunt dwarf galaxy growth
Scientists have discovered that black holes may have been sneakily turning up the thermostat in the early Universe, making it difficult for dwarf galaxies to form.

18/05/12Hubble turns Moon into a mirror for Venus transitThis June, many people on Earth will bear witness to the spectacular event that is the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. The Hubble Space Telescope will be one of the numerous telescopes used to monitor the event - but it will do so using the Moon as a mirror.

30/03/12The hunt is on for exomoons
The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler project has identified around 100 potential light curves that could reveal moons orbiting alien worlds already found by the Kepler Space Telescope.

28/03/12Secrets of remote icy world revealed
New results from a survey of trans-Neptunian objects which help to further our understanding of these remote icy bodies have been revealed at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester.

28/03/12Asteroid split caused by dizzying spin rate
Asteroids that travel through the Solar System close to a companion but not as a bound binary pair could still have shared a common origin, perhaps even spinning apart from one single object, report astronomers at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester this week.

28/03/12Moonlets batter Saturn's F-ringThe gas giant Saturn is most famous for the set of dazzling rings that encircle the planet, and new images have revealed that "jets" streaming from its F-ring are caused by collisions of moonlets with the ring.

28/03/12Vesta's regolith influences surface featuresThe Framing Camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been returning some remarkable pictures of Vesta since its arrival at the giant asteroid in July 2011, and some of these were shown at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester this week.

26/03/12NASA Kepler: the search for exoplanetsThe first exoplanet orbiting a main sequence star was discovered in 1995. Today, the field of exoplanet research is booming, with new planets being announced regularly and exciting new discoveries being made about these alien worlds.

12/03/12Get set for second transit of VenusOn 8 June 2004, Venus crossed in front of the face of the Sun for the first time in living memory. This was truly an impressive spectacle to behold, but despite its rarity, another transit will occur on 5/6 June 2012.

12/03/12MESSENGER's mission at MercuryThe MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft was launched on 3 August 2004 and was inserted into Mercury's orbit on 18 March 2011.

28/02/12Pluto and the Kuiper BeltPluto was long thought to be an outpost in our Solar System, beyond which was just empty space. But with the discovery of thousands of similar objects since 1992, it was realised that Pluto is no longer unique and that the Kuiper Belt holds a wealth of information about our Solar System that has yet to be revealed.

28/02/12Solid buckyballs found in spaceAstronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have detected a particular type of molecule, given the nickname "buckyball", in a solid form for the first time.

17/02/1250 years of American orbital space flightOn 20 February 1962 John Glenn became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth. He spent a total of four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds in space, which was equivalent to 3 orbits, in a tiny capsule dubbed Friendship 7.

16/02/12New Horizons, our mission to explore PlutoNASA's New Horizons spacecraft set out on its long journey to Pluto in 2006, and it should reach its destination in July 2015, making it the first craft to ever visit the mysterious dwarf planet.

15/02/12How you can help discover a planetMore than 700 planets have been discovered to date, but astronomers are seeking help from the public to find still more. Planet Hunters is part of the very successful Zooniverse family of projects.

21/01/12Death of a comet brings new life to science
Comets crash into the Sun all the time, but NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has just captured a debut image of a comet passing in front of the Sun before succumbing to a fiery death.

14/01/12100 billion planets in the Milky Way
Using a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein, astronomers have come to the conclusion that there are more planets than stars in the Milky Way.

13/01/12Star cluster ruled out as Sun's source
Astronomers have long wanted to pinpoint the location within our Galaxy where the Solar System was formed. Stellar cluster M67 has been suggested as the birthplace, but new computer detective work shows that this is not the case.

31/12/11Twins arrive at the Moon for the New Year
On 10 September 2011, NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft began their three month journey to the Moon. The GRAIL duo will be ringing in the new year by entering lunar orbit, with GRAIL-A reaching its destination on 31 December 2011, and GRAIL-B following 25 hours later on 1 January 2012.

23/12/11Planets survive a cosmic tug of warTwo Earth-sized planets have been discovered orbiting a dying star and it seems that they have survived being engulfed during the cataclysmic red giant phase of the star’s evolution.

30/11/11Mysterious comet put under scrutiny
Is it an asteroid? Is it a comet? Well not as we know them! Astronomers are investigating the properties of mysterious members of the Solar System called Main Belt Comets by trying to determine the source of their dust tails.

10/11/11Moon's magnetic personality explainedAn ancient lunar magnetic field that came as a puzzle to planetary scientists may have been caused by interactions between the Earth and the Moon billions of years ago.

26/10/11Alien-friendly zone gets extendedThe chances of finding life around an M dwarf star have just been increased, as researchers suggest that the habitable zone is much larger than originally thought.Also published in the January/February 2012 issue of Popular Astronomy magazine

28/09/2011 Rare star resembles fried egg
A rare yellow hypergiant star surrounded by two dusty shells has been imaged by astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope.

26/09/2011Did fifth giant planet get the boot?
A violent tug of war between the outer planets may have resulted in the ejection of a fifth giant planet from the early Solar System.Also published in the January/February 2012 issue of Popular Astronomy magazine

10/09/2011Mission to solve Moon's mysteries
NASA's GRAIL mission is set to begin its journey to the Moon to map the lunar gravity and reveal some of its secrets of formation.

01/09/2011A forbidden starAn ancient star has been found lurking in the "forbidden zone" of star formation, which has astronomers puzzled as to how it could have formed.

26/08/2011Pulsar planet is a gem of discoveryA former white dwarf star has been transformed into a planet made of diamonds while circling a rapidly spinning pulsar. This dazzling discovery was made using the 64 metre Parkes radio telescope in Australia where irregularities in the signal from the pulsar alerted astronomers that something was orbiting it.

05/08/2011Impact threat to Earth is still realA new study on comet and asteroid impact craters has found that the Earth is just as likely to be struck now as it was hundreds of millions of years ago.Also published in the November/December 2011 issue of Popular Astronomy magazine

28/07/2011Enceladus feeds water to SaturnA 14 year old mystery has been solved as astronomers discover that plumes of water gushing from Saturn's moon Enceladus are the source of water in the planet's upper atmosphere.

21/07/2011Streams of stars switch galaxiesHundreds of stars which were born in the Small Magellanic Cloud have been discovered hiding in neighbouring mini galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

17/07/2011Dawn breaks for asteroid VestaNASA's Dawn spacecraft has been captured into orbit around the asteroid Vesta to begin a year long investigation to unravel some of the mysteries of the early Solar System.

01/07/2011Can you discover a new icy world?
Space enthusiasts are being given the chance to discover icy new worlds in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Their find might even be visited by NASA's New Horizons probe after its fly-by of Pluto, becoming the furthest body from Earth ever visited by a spacecraft.Also published in the September/October 2011 issue of Popular Astronomy magazine.

23/06/2011Extensive nebula frames BetelgeuseAstronomers using the VISIR instrument on the Very Large Telescope, which is operated by the European Southern Observatory, have produced an infrared photograph of a vast nebula surrounding the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.

16/06/2011Hubble's unique view of Centaurus A
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a dramatic view of the peculiar galaxy Centaurus A. This close-up of the centre of the galaxy, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3, shows unprecedented detail of the wispy dust lanes and glowing star forming regions.

14/06/2011Euro mission to tap Moon's waterIt has been nearly forty years since mankind last set foot on the Moon, and with the recent cancellation of NASA's Constellation program it looks like it will still be quite some time before we see another manned lunar mission.

07/06/2011LOFAR images never before seen radio sources
A discovery of faint radio sources by astronomers using the LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray) radio telescope has important implications in understanding a mysterious period in the early Universe.